Policy brief: BU(E)RGER ENERGY

No, it is not a cheesy offer from the latest trendy burger restaurant. It is German for “energy community organisations”, which have made the reputation and success of the energy transition in Germany. How many times have we heard that for the transition to be acceptable and accepted it must be based on citizen participation as in Denmark and Germany?

In her novel Unterleuten, German author and essayist Juli Zeh cuttingly depicts the advent of wind turbines in a village south of Berlin. For the Mayor, it is manna from heaven that will pay for the crèche and basic local public services from the taxes on the electricity produced. There are also the bird lover, who opposes everything on principle, the capitalist from the West who sees in them a source of extra revenue after having bought up half the agricultural land in the area, and a whole series of characters caught between envy and outrage. Not to mention the representative from the Ministry who, using the argument of the necessary implementation of the Paris agreement, will have the turbines erected where the government wants them to be, no matter what. Once in place, the turbines will change the balance of power between the inhabitants, and there will be winners and losers.

And this is precisely where we stand today: the energy transition is already arousing suspicions whereas it could be a powerful driver for social cohesion and for converting local areas. Suspicions that the same old players will be the only ones to benefit. Today in Germany, community projects « Bürgerenergie » are much criticised and have lost the confidence of citizens. Large producers have been smart enough to take advantage of the lack of clarity in the definition of community projects to propose packages, including having their own employees play “local citizens” , which ensure they will win bids. Once the main driver behind the transition, energy cooperatives are now losing ground.

This trend has a strong impact on the EU negotiations of the “Clean energy for all” package, which, precisely, seeks to define “local energy communities”. To thwart the offensive of the large groups, some German MPs would like to restrict the definition to municipally-owned companies, or Stadtwerke. But they too are part of the conventional group of players. In many countries, the emergence of hybrid stakeholders – a unique alliance of citizens and local authorities that creates new relationships between players as well as new forms of local governance – will only be able to transform the energy systems if these partnerships are legally recognised (and therefore protected).